Conference hydra::amiga_v1

Hey <CB>, pretty ugly background color :-)

Seriously, I just converted it to SIXEL with CSIX and printed it on on LJ250.
It's almost unreadable... Sooo I edited the sixel file and changed the
background to white. Looks nice! Good job CB!


wjg::amiga:take5.six


John

    Re: -1
    
    Yeah, but with this color ya can bear interlace for some minutes
    a day... ;-)
    
    The final ZOO archive including the documentation will have this
    fixed.
    
    Regards,
    
    <CB>

    Looks good a lot better than the one I 'borrowed` from the Amiga 1000
    prints.  I went head and built it this last weekend.  My Teac drive is
    still on order, but with the interface connected to my Amiga 500's 
    external bus it fixed the Trackdisk.device bug.  My guess that all the 
    Amiga needed was a RDY signal from anything but DF0:.  At least PCC720
    and PCF720 work without TDpatch12 and I was able to reinstall my KS1.3 
    rom.  Cross Dos 3.2 is smart enough to tell that DF1: does not exist but 
    PCC720 and PCF720 thinks that it is write protected.
    
    A couple of small typoes.  The drawing has U5 pin 6 going to J1 and J2
    pin 22 (INDX).  I put U5 pin 6 on J1 pin 11 (CHNG).  Also the SEL1
    signal J1 pin 21 crosses but does not connect to U1 pin 1.
    
    Thanks for the drawing I will post the results when ever my drive
    arrives.
    
    Alan

    Re: .3
    
    Thanks for the input and the compliments... ;-)
    
    I'll check the stuff you mentioned vs my original drawing/actual
    PCB, and will correct any mishaps in the final version.
    
    Regards,
    
    <CB>

    To start off with I have never had another floppy drive connected to my 
    Amiga so I am not sure exactly how it is supposed to behave. 
    
    My Teac 55F arrived the other day.  The interface works great.  In 5.25 
    inch mode the Amiga ID's the drive as a 5.25 inch drive. The Teac 55F 
    is capable of 80 tracks but despite what the mountlist entry states I 
    cannot format past track 39.  This must be a limit of the 
    Trackdisk.Device.  Setting the Mountlist entry for 40 tracks the disk 
    will mount and format correctly.  Also the OS bug is still present and 
    PcC720 and PcF720 get the -4 error.  Its not very useful to me in this 
    mode.  
    
    On the other hand with the interface configured for 3.5 inch mode and 
    the HS jumper removed on the Teac drive the drive auto configures as a 
    3.5 inch drive and can be formatted as such under workbench.  Marauder 
    will even do an image copy from the internal 3.5 inch to the Teac. This 
    is great.  A box of 25, 5.25 inch floppies go for $12.46 while a box of 
    25, 3.5 inch floppies go for $29.99.  This last weekend I recovered 
    $35.00 worth of 3.5 inch by doing a backup to the Teac drive.  It looks 
    like I wont have to buy another 3.5 inch floppy for a long time.  Also 
    as an added plus since the Amiga thinks this is a 3.5 inch drive the OS 
    bug is fixed, So CrossDos and PcC720 and PcF720 work.  But the original 
    PC format program won't run since it does not see a 5.25 inch floppy 
    attached, (no big loss).  The HS jumper has to be removed to format the 
    drive under Workbench without it it gets a sector read error trying to 
    verify track 0.  This jumper when removed must slow the spindle speed 
    down to achieve a higher density so the drive can read/write 11 
    sectors.
    
    I was able to read a few 360K 5.25 inch MSDOS floppys with PcC720 and 
    CrossDos.  Also I was able to read/write a few 160K single sided MSDOS 
    floppies on my Rainbow and Amiga.  I cannot get PcC720 or Crossdos to 
    read a Rainbow MSDOS Floppy.  CrossDos gets a not a dos disk requester 
    and PC720 gets a FAT table corrupt error.  I think I have all the 
    information for Format editor but havent gotten it to work just yet.  
    
    The Teac drive is a tad slower than the internal 3.5 inch using the old 
    filing system.  I mounted it with the fast filling system and it worked 
    but when I tried the same thing with the internal 3.5 inch drive two 
    floppies got a read/write error running DiskPerf2.  So I could not 
    compare the difference between the Teac 5.25 and the internal 3.5 inch 
    under FFS.  I can upload the results if any one is interested.
    
    I could not get the Disk change switch to work.  I need to go through 
    and verify that my wire wrapping is good.  I was having to much fun 
    playing with my new toy.
    
    A few quarks.
    
    1.  If there is not a valid workbench formatted floppy in the drive 
        when you LoadWb then the drive comes up as bad.  You either have to 
        do a diskchange with a valid formatted disk or run PcC720 and then     
        exit it.  If you do not PcC720 and CrossDoss cannot access the disk 
        properly.  CrossDos gets a Not a DOS disk requester and PcC720 says  
        the root directory is full.
    
    2.  I have a small RAD: set up to do an Auto Reboot from.  I have the 
        Bootpri set so that it will boot from a floppy if present.  If I 
        leave a non bootable floppy in DF0: it will try DF0: then hit DF1: 
        (the Teac) even if the Teac drive has an image copy of my bootable     
        workbench floppy it will not boot I get a default workbench screen 
        and cannot get to a C directory.  (no commands work).  Removing the 
        floppy from DF0: and rebooting reboots from RAD: as normal. It hits
        DF1: but ignores it. I do not know if a KS1.3 ROM should boot from 
        any floppy but DF0:
    
    Thanks <CB> for the interface drawing this was lots of fun.  Good work.
    
    Alan
                                                               
    
    

    Re: .5
        
    First of, a corrected, black on white drawing is now available at
    the usual place (see .1) as "Take-5.final". Doc is still under 
    construction, sorry.
    
    >My Teac 55F arrived the other day.  The interface works great.  In 5.25 
    >inch mode the Amiga ID's the drive as a 5.25 inch drive. The Teac 55F 
    >is capable of 80 tracks but despite what the mountlist entry states I 
    >cannot format past track 39.  This must be a limit of the 
    >Trackdisk.Device.  Setting the Mountlist entry for 40 tracks the disk 
    >will mount and format correctly.  Also the OS bug is still present and 
    >PcC720 and PcF720 get the -4 error.  Its not very useful to me in this 
    >mode.                                          
    If in the 5.25" mode, the Amiga will think of the drive as an original
    Amiga 5.25" drive, which has only 40 tracks...
    It will however work just great with the original CBM utilities
    like PCCopy and PCFormat...
    This is what this mode is all about and things like CrossDOS make
    it somewhat obsolete.
    However it's great if you're low on RAM and don't want to have that
    drive mapped in and a trackdisk.device with its buffers allocted for
    it.
    
    
    >I could not get the Disk change switch to work.  I need to go through 
    >and verify that my wire wrapping is good.  I was having to much fun 
    >playing with my new toy.
    You should really fix this, see below...
    
    >A few quarks.
    
    >1.  If there is not a valid workbench formatted floppy in the drive 
    >    when you LoadWb then the drive comes up as bad.  You either have to 
    >    do a diskchange with a valid formatted disk or run PcC720 and then     
    >    exit it.  If you do not PcC720 and CrossDoss cannot access the disk 
    >    properly.  CrossDos gets a Not a DOS disk requester and PcC720 says  
    >    the root directory is full.        
    This is because of the broken diskchange circuit. By default, the
    circuit will tell the Amiga that a disk is present, unless told
    so by the appropriate switch. I have attached a microswitch to my
    TEAC drive in a way that that it will report the presence of a disk
    by the position of the handle (closed=present, open=no disk). This
    way it works just like an original 3.5" drive...
    
    I have no idea on 2., but I don't use RAD: anyway (to flakey)...
    
    Hope that helps,
    
    <CB>

    RAD: flakey?  Could you elaborate?  Are you talking system crashes,
    lost/corrupted data, failure to survive warm boot, or what?
    
    Is another version (ASDG, etc.) better?

    Re: .8
    
    I'm talking mainly failure to survive even "harmless" warm boots.
    Besides some gotchas like fixed size, there's also a "real" bug
    in the current ramdisk.device, which causes the system to hang the
    first time you try to reinstall RAD: after a crash that killed it.
    
    No, other versions have different moot points, the best thing would
    be an autobooting VD0: with automatic housekeeping...
    
    See also recent discussions on UseNet about this topic.
    
    Regards,
    
    <CB>

    re: .9
    
    I'm curious about your bad experiences with RAD:.  I'm using RAD: to
    effectively make my C-Ltd 500 SCSI controller an autoboot device.  I
    create a minimal bootable RAD: that immediately transfers control to my
    hard disk.  I've not seen any of the problems you mention.  I more
    often then not have to go out of my way to get rid of RAD: so I can
    boot a game floppy.
    
    -tl

    Re: .10
    
    Well, maybe it's my hardware (obese Agnus [yup, I used the SetPatch
    -R opttion], A2620) or the insane amount of programs or their bad
    habits that I usually run.
    RAD: (for me) simply wasn't worth the RAM: for the marginal faster boot
    procress, if I took it's lack of stability into account.
    
    Regards,
    
    <CB>

    re: .11
    
    I have an auto-booting hard drive.  And RAD: stability issues aside, I
    still don't think that setting up RAD: to speed the boot process is
    worth the effort.  The only time I now use RAD: is if I want some fast
    temporary space that I need to survive a crash.  Back when I was
    strictly floppy based, RAD: was definetly worth the effort, and I used
    DISKCOPY to load my entire workbench floppy to RAD:.
    

    <CB> I found the connection I missed It works now.  Again good job.
    
    .10 I also have the CLtd also.  I also use rad: for a minimal auto boot
    disk.  But I set the bootpri low enough so that if a floppy is in df0:
    it will boot first.  So when I am tired of working and want to play I
    insert a floppy in df0: reboot and play.  When it is time to work
    again simply remove the floppy and reboot RAD: then takes over and
    brings up the hard disk.  Saves wear and tear on the floppy and it is
    noticeably faster.
    
    I havent had any misses that I could not explain to something I or a
    unfreindly program did.
    
    Alan